Very useful thread. I didn't have a clue who our candidates were but have had a read. There is a big thing going on between the local Tory and Independent Candidate over an alleged CCJ and a history of companies liquidated leaving debt.The Independent has just reported him to the police as he believes the Tory guy misled the public, breached election law and apparently Conservative HQ were advised of this 4 months ago.

You have a duty to vote, if you have ever lived in a country where politics has failed the community you'd feel differently. Make the effort read through the leaflets. A vote is a preference to the way you want policing to go not an agreement to very policy they have. If you spoil you paper that makes no difference to the outcome.

If you put yourself forward for anything in politics you now open up your entire family to crappy invasion of privacy by partisan media. Why would any 'normal' person choose to do that? There is no reason at all for party politics to becxome part of policing. It was not asked for by the electorate. We do not have a 'duty' to vote for something so stupid. We have a duty not to vote for it imo, so that is why I shall be spoiling my paper.

There are no elections for police and crime commissioners taking place in the area you have specified. The London Mayor is the police and crime commissioner for London. The Mayoral elections that were held earlier this year determined the police and crime commissioner for the London area

If there is no money for a leaflet, there is no money for an extra level of crappy snout in trough politicians either. Let's save a few pennies and abolish them after this electoral disaster in the making

Mecil - the fact is someone is going to be elected and has influence over your policing. By all means lobby your MP for such a decision to be reversed but the fact of the matter is someone will be elected. I want to be engaged and help to decide who that someone is. If you all spoil you papers and I am the only one that decided your policing and that cannot be right.

I sort of object to it being politicised as many of the things the police are involved with should be beyond politics and outside of a political agenda. Around here, that leaves me with one option so I guess that will be by choice.

What will happen is 90 percent won't vote at all. What kind of democratic process is that? Can democracy operate in an online only environment? I wonder. My vote is for no party politics in policing. Sadly I was never asked that question. Notice we all told the govt to eff off with their elected mayor idea when asked.

How are the people who don't have internet access supposed to decide who to vote for? I know most homes now have internet access but there must still be a large number of people, mainly elderly (I guess) who will not know who to vote for.

I agree that we shouldn't be put in the position, but we are. If 90% don't vote then the 10% that did vote (i.e. the jolly family) decide on your behalf. We should ask our MP's why they decided to do this, challenge them etc but for now, do your research and vote. It is in our local paper (which is free).

What annoys me about this is that my polling card arrived before I knew anything about this new role. Since it came I looked online and have found out about the role and the candidates in my area, I can't imagine that many others have done this, even if they have the tools to do so.

Where have the public adverts been shown? I watch a bit of TV and haven't seen anything about this. Why haven't I had information sent to me from candidates and about the role in general?

Democracy only works if people are given the information they need to make an informed decision on who they believe will be best in that role. This whole PCC thing seems to be ill-conceived and badly pubicised. Why has it come about?

all i know is i get a leaflet shoved through my door and i don,t no anything about it do they think the public are that stupied that were going to vote somthing we don,t no about. from what i understand we have to vote someone to decide about matters of the police the question is should one man get all that power.

I'm not voting and neither is DH. This is in itself a decision. Neither of us thinks their should be elections as it cannot be anything but a politicisation of policing. Therefore we are not going to participate. Even spoiling my paper feels like I'd be agreeing to the process in some way that I'm not comfortable with (and then there's the fact that they tend to interpret this as stupidity or confusion rather than refusal, which infuriates me).

I'm writing an email to my MP (and ccing in the home office) just to make it clear that it's not laziness or fecklessness on my part; I am refusing to vote in an election that I don't agree with. If enough people do that, then it'll be difficult to interpret the low turnout as apathy. It should be clear that people have made a well considered choice not to participate. Therefore the candidate elected by a small minority of the population will have a pretty shoddy mandate.

I don't believe that I have a duty to vote either. I refuse to lend legitimacy to this process. And it isn't just about party politics; I do not believe that we should elect police commissioners.

Im going to vote- not for the independent person though, as apparently they are a mason, and being finacially backed by other masons.I can't see how being a member of a secret society is a good thing for the person I/c the police.

Here we have received the postal vote but not ONE leaflet for any candidate!

I was to see that the 'candidate' were affiliated to political party tbh. No member within the Police should be chosen according to his political views ever.

So we have no idea who the candidates are, no idea what they propose to do, so I am assuming we are suppose to choose them according to their political views .... which have nothing to do what so ever with running the Police in a efficient manner.

Unless... they expect these people to then take decisions according to their beliefs, not to the law and chose to put resources where they think it's better. Let's say to tackle youth crimes because don't you know that all teenagers are awful and not support DV issues because family is our strongest assets, single women with dcs are just benefit grabbing people....

The issue with not voting or spoiling the vote is that it will not change a thing to the result of the vote.So better imo to vote to try and have 'the least bad' of all. No idea how I am going to do that as we have no information about any of them here.

<<Mind boggles as how this is an appropriate way to run a democraty though>>

I'm ex-police and hear that this new commisioner will be paid £50,000, have their own office at hq portished, have a PA paid £22,000 plus expenses like using their own car to travel around the region, to attend meetings.

So, the police have had budget cuts imposed but can still afford £72,000 per annum? All proves the point they can find the money if they really want to!

have listened to the interviews by the candidates and they all want the same thing - i.e more visible policing, cut down asb, repeat offender targetting, etc, - the police do this already - or should be doing it. The only difference between them all is that one of the candidates is a woman.

I've written to David Laws MP to express my concern over wastage of tax payers money. I've yet to recieve a reply.